The Notre Dame football team opened spring practice on March 27 at the Loftus Sports Complex. Throughout the spring, www.und.com will follow the progress of senior flanker Arnaz Battle and senior linebacker Tyreo Harrison.

The following is the fourth interview with Harrison:

With Spring Football winding down to the last couple of weeks, have any players stepped up as leaders for next fall?

"Jeff Faine is a leader of the offensive line without a doubt. He can get dirty sometimes, but that is because he works so hard. Since Rocky (Boiman) is out, I am trying my best to hold it down at the linebacker position. On the D-line Anthony Weaver will always be the leader. I'm not going to say there is a definite leader of the defense or the offense because I'm not the one to do that. At positions, there are the obvious ones picking up the slack when it needs to be picked up, especially keeping everyone in line."

Is there a sense in the team that time is growing short to establish themselves for next season?

"People are starting to realize that they are running out of time to get better at certain things. There is an urgency to fix those things that you haven't been able to perfect yet. This is actually the first week people have begun to talk about the spring game. Up to this point it has been practice, practice and more practice. Then, after the game is over, here come those exams."

On Saturday, during practice, there was a little scrimmage. On a shuffle pass play, you let Terrence Howard know who was playing linebacker with a leveling hit. What do you have against Mr. Howard?

"I'm not JUST trying to hit Terrence Howard, I'm trying to hit everyone. I don't have a personal vendetta with Terrence Howard, even though I have hit him a couple of practices in a row. They gave him a shuffle pass, and I jumped on the quarterback about it. He shouldn't have given him that ball because he saw me coming in there. All I did was head-butt him when he didn't see me coming. There was nothing he could do but fall."